U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 23476 / February 26, 2016
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Bonan Huang, et al., Civil Action No. 2:15-cv-00269 (E.D. Pa.)
SEC Obtains Final Judgment Against Former Capital One Employee for Insider Trading
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania yesterday issued a memorandum opinion and final judgment against Nan Huang, who a jury found liable last month for insider trading on information he improperly obtained from his employer Capital One Financial Corporation.
The court imposed on Huang permanent injunctive relief and ordered payment of $4,403,545 in disgorgement, $288,965 in prejudgment interest, and an $8,807,090 penalty for a total of $13.5 million.
According to court documents, Huang worked as a data analyst in Capital One's fraud department when he searched a nonpublic company database that recorded the credit card activity for millions of customers at numerous, predominantly consumer retail corporations. In violation of Capital One's code of conduct, Huang conducted thousands of searches in this database, which allowed him to view and analyze aggregated sales data for the companies he searched. Huang then used this material, nonpublic information to make profitable securities transactions in advance of the public release of quarterly sales announcements by these companies.
The other defendant charged in this matter, Mr. Bonan Huang, settled with the Commission on December 3, 2015.
The trial team from the Commission's Philadelphia Regional Office consisted of trial attorneys David L. Axelrod and Christopher R. Kelly, and trial paralegal Nichelle Pridgen.
For further information, see Litigation Release No. 23179 (Jan. 22, 2015), Litigation Release No. 23216 (Mar. 10, 2015), Litigation Release No. 23438 (Dec. 23, 2015), and Litigation Release No. 23445 (Jan. 14, 2016).